


I Shivered in those Solitudes

by silk_knickers



Category: Hidden Palms
Genre: Angst, Drugs, Drunk Sex, Drunkenness, Emotional Manipulation, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-22
Updated: 2010-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-11 05:08:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silk_knickers/pseuds/silk_knickers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cliff usually gets what he wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Shivered in those Solitudes

  
Cliff had read once that the way to tame an animal was to keep touching it until it was no longer afraid of you. Cliff fucking hated animals, but he figured the same principle probably applied to people too.

So he was all smiles and charm with Johnny, pats on the back and squeezes of the arm, just a little too much leaning into his personal space. He hadn't decided yet if this particular animal was worth taming or not, but it was best to start off on the right foot. If you tamed an animal and decided later that you don't want it any more, you could always release it back to the wild. Or put it down.

It wasn't like there was anything else to do in this fucking town.

~~~~~

Greta came over a week after Johnny moved in and smirked at him with her too-knowing eyes. She'd always been able to see through his bullshit, and he hated her for it. They were too much alike to ever really trust one another.

"He's a virgin, you know," she said, teasingly.

Cliff snorted. "Did he tell you that?"

"I believe him."

Cliff leaned forward, so their noses were almost touching. "Did that turn you on?"

Greta scowled, and took a step back. She liked to act like she was a stone cold bitch, but at the end of the day, she was just as weak as all the others.

He took another step forward.

~~~~~

_Virgin_. If it were true, it made the game a little more interesting.

There were two types of virgins, Cliff had found. There was the religious freak saving-myself-for-marriage type; those were just one argument with the parents away from giving it up to the first cock they saw. Then there were the ones who were too ugly or just lacked self-confidence. That type of virgin was easy, too; they were _desperate_ for it.

Johnny wasn't ugly, and he didn't strike Cliff as the holy roller type either. Which left a lack of self-confidence. Cliff watched Johnny walking around the country club with that camera and smirked. A camera just put another layer between him and the world. An artist who views the world but doesn't consider himself a part of it.

Oh, this would be _too easy_.

~~~~~

"So, you and Greta... did you ever..."

They were in Cliff's bedroom, with the A/C on full blast. It was fucking 100 degrees in the shade today, and even the pool had been deserted.

"Did we ever what?" Cliff asked. If the kid couldn't say it, maybe he really hadn't ever done it.

"You know."

Cliff rolled over on the bed to look down at Johnny, sprawled on his floor.

"Did we ever fuck, you mean?"

Johnny had the grace to look embarrassed. "Sorry. It's none of my business."

Cliff grinned. "No, it's cool." He got up and walked over to his dresser, and opened the sock drawer. "The thing about Greta... she's a bit of a cocktease." He rummaged around inside the drawer. "And once you get past that, she's also an incredibly lousy lay." He found what he was looking for. "She's got nice tits, though. Want some?"

Johnny looked up at the bag of weed Cliff was holding and turned pale. "Uhm... no, thanks. I've got to go." He stood up quickly and fled the room.

Well, _fuck_, Cliff thought as he watched Johnny leave.

Cliff rolled a joint anyway.

~~~~~

Sometimes, Cliff realized, he wasn't as observant and suave as he thought he was. The kid had turned down liquor at the country club, he freaked at the sight of a joint, he was a year behind in school. That added up to "recovering addict," which pretty much ruled out the "get him drunk and screw" approach.

There were other ways.

~~~~~

"What are you up to?" Cliff asked Johnny through his window one afternoon.

Johnny held up a book in answer, some poetry shit. Cliff grinned, all white teeth, and suppressed the reflex to roll his eyes.

"Come with me," he said, and walked toward his garage without looking to see if Johnny would follow.

Johnny did.

~~~~~

Cliff drove them out into the desert, deep into Joshua Tree National Park. The sky was brilliant blue, dotted with only a few white cottony clouds. The pale desert stretched miles in every direction. He pulled off the main road, following a dusty trail toward a rock ridge. Neither of them had spoken for the last hour.

At last Cliff brought the car to a stop in the shade of a high outcropping. The engine sputtered to a halt as he turned the key. He stepped out of the car, the heat slapping him in the face, and started walking up a well-worn trail into the ridges. A moment later, he could hear the passenger-side door slam and the crunch of gravel as Johnny followed him. He pressed the lock button on his key fob, the cheery chirp echoing strangely among the rocks.

He could hear Johnny following him, but didn't slow his step. The trail rose up into a gap between two large rocky boulders. He climbed carefully up over some of the smaller rocks, which formed a natural stair to the right, then scrambled over a larger ridge, and finally stopped on a flat area with a view north onto endless desert. His brow glistened with sweat and he could feel it soaking through his polo shirt at the armpits and the small of his back. Johnny caught up with him at last, breathing heavily, and stood by his side.

They stood there in silence, looking out onto the desert.

"I used to come out here with Eddie," Cliff said, his voice cracking slightly from disuse. He could really have gone for a mojito or three right then.

"It's nice. I wish I'd brought my camera."

"Eddie loved the desert. He used to bring his sketchbook out here and draw for hours."

Eddie couldn't draw for shit, and he was afraid to death of the snakes.

"You cared about him a lot, didn't you?"

_No shit_. That, at least, was the truth.

Cliff felt Johnny's hand, feather-light, on his shoulder.

~~~~~

After that, it was just a matter of time.

They went out into the desert every three or four days, to different places Cliff knew; always places where there weren't a lot of people. Eddie had hated the desert, but Cliff had practically lived out there in the first months after his death, before he realized that the best way to move on was to just stop giving a fuck. He probably should have felt guilty about using Eddie's memory as an angle, but he figured his friend would probably have forgiven him. Eddie had been cool like that.

Johnny brought his camera.

Greta got in Cliff's face about it one night. "Why are you fucking with him? Haven't you destroyed enough people? Do you really need another notch on your bedpost?"

Like she was one to talk. He knew that she and Johnny were doing their own little dance, moth and flame. He was pretty sure she hadn't tumbled him yet, but she probably would, eventually. Greta was like Cliff; she usually got what she wanted, in the end.

Cliff figured he'd get there first. He didn't really care, though. The chase was the thing.

~~~~~

Cliff played up his cocky side when he and Johnny were in public, and saved the faux-vulnerable side for when they were alone together, out in the desert. In public, he found every excuse to touch Johnny: pats on the back, a companionable arm around the shoulders, a teasing punch on the arm. In private, when he made up shit about Eddie (the real stuff still too raw, still too personal to be used like that) it was Johnny who touched him, little pats and compassionate squeezes.

Johnny was a pretty good listener, although he had a disconcerting tendency to ask quiet questions that showed he was listening maybe a little too well.

In late August, they sat on a mesa in Joshua Tree. Cliff sat Indian-style with a half empty bottle of cab sauv between his legs, while Johnny sipped at a bottle of Evian.

"School starts next week," Johnny observed. "And I'll get to do the new kid routine all over again."

Cliff took a swig of the wine. "Stick with me, kid, and you'll be fine."

Johnny glanced at him sideways. "You drink too much."

Cliff scowled. He was in a pissy mood; it had been August when Eddie had... yeah. "You're not my boyfriend."

"I'm not stupid, either."

Cliff looked over at the kid.

"Are you going to make a move, or what?" Johnny asked.

Cliff examined Johnny as he took another swig of wine. "Okay."

"Okay."

Cliff set the bottle down beside him, then got up on his knees and made his way over to Johnny. Johnny stared levelly back at him, cool dark eyes expressionless. Cliff wanted to punch him.

He grabbed his shirt and pulled him in for a kiss instead.

~~~~~

Johnny's lips were cool beneath his, his mouth moist in the desert heat. Cliff's heart pounded; the alcohol and the heat were making him light-headed. He fumbled with the buttons on Johnny's shirt, yanking it off with hasty movements. Johnny's skin was golden tan in the afternoon sun.

Johnny's hands moved with practiced ease to remove Cliff's shirt too.

Cliff leaned forward into Johnny's mouth, hungrily pressing his lips against his friend's. Johnny's response was more subdued, small movements back against Cliff's lips. It just pissed Cliff off more.

Cliff struggled with Johnny's belt, until Johnny brushed his hand away and undid the clasp himself. Johnny unbuttoned his jeans and drew the zipper down one-handed; his other hand was firm against Cliff's shoulder, keeping him from falling off-balance. Cliff roughly shoved a hand down into Johnny's underpants, finally drawing a reaction as his hand closed about Johnny's cock. Johnny gasped and swayed a little, then kissed back more firmly as he worked at Cliff's belt and the zipper of his khakis. Johnny slid a hand into Cliff's pants and gasped again when he discovered that Cliff was going commando.

The two were both on their knees, chests pressed close together as they kissed. Cliff was all teeth and tongue against Johnny's mouth, hungry for the taste of him. His hand squeezed at Johnny's dick roughly; he wanted it to hurt, he wanted the other boy to feel it. Johnny's touch was more gentle, too gentle; Cliff's other hand twisted Johnny's right nipple savagely and the other boy got the idea, closing more firmly around Cliff's erection and jerking with more speed. Cliff groaned at the feeling, a rumbling moan from deep in his chest. He wanted... he wanted...

He wanted Eddie.

With a heaving shudder, he came, his semen shooting up between them to stick messily to both their sweaty chests. He collapsed against Johnny, his head falling onto Johnny's shoulder, and let out a racking sob.

Johnny held him close, rocking him gently back and forth. Johnny's red, raw erection pressed against Cliff's pelvic bone, unsatisfied and ignored, and began to fall. Cliff sniffled into Johnny's neck as Johnny rubbed his back and made soft, consoling sounds.

The bottle of cab, overturned, left a wine-red stain on the rocks like dried blood.

~~~~~

They didn't ever talk about that afternoon again: not later that night when Johnny slowly fucked Cliff in his bedroom, nor the next morning when they lay spooned in bed together beneath the cool cotton sheets. Johnny never mentioned Eddie again, even indirectly, and somehow knew enough not to ever look at Cliff with any sign of sympathy in his eyes. Johnny never called Cliff on his bullshit, though he had to know, now. He somehow knew instinctively when Cliff needed it to be rough and when he needed it gentle, when to back away and when to push back at him. Johnny was very observant, and he wasn't stupid.

Johnny also definitely hadn't been a virgin.

~~~~~

Greta came over the night before school started, wanting to fuck. He shut the door in her face.

It was all bullshit anyway.


End file.
